Walt Disney World Marathon - RunMarathon

I did Chicago in October and had slacked off on training so I had no expectations other than finishing and knew up front that it would be tough. My husband (who did Goofy for 5th year) and I decided to run together (his pace is faster than me in general). We got to the start just in time to start running before the next wave. We didn't have to battle for any placement so we were able to start off easy & slow. We kept this going through the first half. At mile four I felt great. By mile 13 I started to feel the burn that you would typically feel around 18 to 20 (if you actually trained). I pushed on to 15 before I allowed myself to give in to a run/walk method. By mile 17 I was walking most of the ramps and pushing myself to run as much as possible but it became in much shorter spurts. By mile 21 I was encouraged that I only had 5.2 miles left. From there I could only work the mileage down in my head of 5 miles, then 4, 3, 2, 1 until finally... Finished. The last two miles were very challenging to keep going. My husband kept me pushing forward and we were able to cross the finish line together hand in hand.

It was a great experience to run with him. People say 'Not many people say that they can run a marathon'. To add to that, not many couples can say that they ran a marathon together. The only downside to running together was probably too many potty breaks. Typically I'm able to bypass this all together but for this event between the two of us we lost over 30 minutes running time. But again, in reflection there were no time goals. The only goal was to finish togheter.

Train

Immediately went to the race retreat and fueled up. The race retreat food was the best start to my recovery. Did some stretching in the tent but finished with some nice long stretches back in the room. Finished off with a recovery drink. Then we went to Downtown Disney to keep moving. Most important thing was to just keep moving and eating.


Lack of training and too many potty breaks but again, there was no concern with time.


This is definitely a Do Again event. Great tech shirts and medals of which you get to wear proudly at the parks the next few days. This also was the first time I went without my crutch of a water bottle but I didn't miss it at all due to good number of water stops. This is the first event where I've ever been able to receive two full size bananas, raisens and chocolate along the course. This was a pleasant surprise especially since I forgot to bring my hammer gels and had to use powergels (of which are not easy on my stomach so I had to cut back on intake). So now the question is... should I try Goofy next year? Maybe.